In the late summer of 2010, Dick Proenneke’s brother, Jake, discovered a closetful of unseen 8mm and 16mm film shot during Dick’s 30-year adventure living ALONE IN THE WILDERNESS. The thousands of feet of film was turned over to Bob Swerer Sr. & Jr., producers of the original “ALONE IN THE WILDERNESS and longtime friends of the Proenneke brothers to see if it would be possible to create another documentary for public television.
The end result is “ALONE IN THE WILDERNESS PART 2” The Swerers carefully matched up footage with Dick’s hand written journals to recreate Dick’s second year in the Alaskan wild.
Initially, the task of filming himself in the wilderness was a challenge for Dick. He began with a simple used wind-up Bolex camera that was given to him by his brother, Jake. Dick would give the exposed film with a passing bush pilot who would mail it to his brother . Jake would have the film developed, review it through a projector, and send Dick letters reporting how the footage looked, whether it was over or underexposed, out-of- focus, too far away, etc. As it could take several months for these messages to reach Dick in Alaska, not all of the film he shot was of sufficient quality to be included in the documentaries.
Watch Friday, December 2, 2011 at 9pm.
